Clash of Cultures VASSAL game?

sorry for the delay, greens turn is up.

red next

Not Sure wrote:

Gary Sax wrote: The wording is exactly what I put in bold in my previous post. You hit the key point, though, it doesn't appear to be modifying any actions. I wish it referenced the advance activity instead of just advance noun, though.

My mistake, I was posting that from my phone so I didn't look back far enough or cross-check.

What's interesting now that I have my actual computer and game shelf is that the Vassal version (which I've been staring at more than the game) says something different.

My 1st edition player board says what you have in your post:

"Science" advances can be bought at no Food cost (once per turn)

This is the same phrasing as the actual Science advances.

The Vassal version advances board says:

Get a "Science" advance without paying any Food (once per turn)

I'm not sure if that changes between editions in the physical game, or where that wording comes from.

The first phrasing I think is less ambiguous (but probably not perfect). How are advances bought? By using an Advance action, and paying two food. So, "advances may be bought at no Food cost" to me still implies they're an action. The second phrasing is a bit different, but I think it means the same.

The "AAA" mark is all over the advances board, but only to mark things that aren't otherwise actions.

The ones I see are (paraphrased for length):
* (Engineering) Activate a city to build a Wonder (which is only unusual in that it's a Wonder. Activate to build is normal, and an action).
* (Cartography) Get 1 Culture and 1 Idea from regions with ships
* (Bartering) Exchange resources for Gold/Culture
* (Taxation) Pay Mood for Gold
* (Civil Liberties) Get 3 Mood tokens

Other than Engineering, they're all things you can't do at all without the advance, so they're marked as actions. Also look at "Monuments", "Art & Sculptures", "Voting", and "Economic Liberty" where things that are normally actions are spelled out as "at no action cost".

I looked on BGG, and it's amazing to me that I didn't find six rules threads on it. They're usually both pedantic and thick about asking questions that aren't even vague. I'd imagine Christian will be along eventually. I can see the argument for free action (especially in the "without paying" wording), but I don't think it holds up looking across the rest of board. I can't see anyone else's physical copy, so I'm interested in what they say in various versions.

Hi. Any grpahics difference between the actual board and the Vassal module, is likely due to the graphics from the Vassal module being based of a player board image used pre-release as part of the promotion for the game.

As for Science advances... If an advance says it costs no food, it only means that. It still costs an action, you are just doing it at a reduced price.

By the way, Christian, I HUGELY appreciate you allowing a VASSAL module for the game, despite the confusion it caused here. I don't want you to feel like you got bit by letting the nice dude from BGG make one.

It's a fantastic game to play via VASSAL PBEM and live, it's structured perfectly for it.

I wanted to get a strategy discussion going on this game, we've been mostly talking about this in the trashtalk thread.

I've been thinking about the economy in this game. Specifically, I think there are a number of clear economy tech up combos, but I want to make sure I understand them.

Here are the main/obvious ones:

Anything involving democracy comboed with whatever else you want to do(free gather every turn)
Trade routes (ports, naval techs-->profit)
Taxation (found cities and conquer barbarians, taxation-->profit)

I guess my question is if people think:

a) There are other big time econ strategies
b) You have to take at least one obvious econ strategy in every game to win?

That is, if I'm going war/autocrat, do I have to also at least tech up an econ strategy like trade routes to keep that going? I feel like these big money, especially gold, strategies basically enable you to do everything else in the game much, much better. It makes it feel imperative that you take at least one of these routes no matter what else you want to do or how you want to win. This is a pretty obvious simplification, but I am concerned that everything runs through one of these.

Looking to schedule an evening VASSAL live play game. Anyone interested? We could play this or something else, but this was the first thing that came to mind.

If you mean tonight, I can't, but maybe next Friday? I kinda have to do friday nights, Saturday's I'm still out gaming till late, usually and I get up at 3:30 am during the week.

No specific day in mind. Fridays usually work for me if I know in advance... Anyone else going to be free next Friday?

Yep.

My time zone is PST by the way.

I might be interested and free as well.

I promise to take "Steel Weapons" and angry up the game.

I'd be all over a live game next Friday night... I'm CST. 8PM? I could do 9PM as well. When stonecutter and I played... how long did it take? 3 hours? 3 1/2?